UK Employers Finding It Hard to Fill Key Job Vacancies Today, Says KPMG

Rob Starr, Big4.com

25 August 2010

(blog) Here’s another one for the truth is stranger than fiction file. According to a new report from KPMG UK, almost half of the British employers surveyed said that they were having a hard time filling open job vacancies. In fact 45% of the 600 that were surveyed said that they were having this problem to such an extent they were looking offshore to fill the vacancies, especially for key positions where historically talent has been sourced from outside the UK as in engineering, accounting/finance and IT....

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FASB Chairman Herz, ex-PwC, Unexpectedly Retires. Seidman, ex-E&Y, Is Acting

Lisa Chapman, Big4.com

25 August 2010

(blog) We saw it yesterday buzzing around in the news, and also confirmed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) that its current chairman Robert Herz is retiring on his own accord almost two years before the end of his term, much to the surprise of the industry, the Board and the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF). Robert H. Herz was appointed FASB chairman on July 1, 2002, and was reappointed to a second term effective July 1, 2007 for a 5 year term. Previously, he was a senior partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers...

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Interest Rates To Hit Eight Percent By 2012? No Way Says Ernst And Young

Rob Starr, Big4.com

25 August 2010

(blog) Fair Investment.co.uk has an interesting story about how “Andrew Lilico, chief economist at Policy Exchange claims that interest rates could have to increase to eight per cent to combat the high inflation that will couple the boom he is predicting.”...

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PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Pays $378 Million Cash for Diamond Management & Technology Consultants

Susan Black, Big4.com

24 August 2010

(blog) PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) is plunking down $378 million in cold hard cash for Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, Inc. in another sign that the M&A market in the consulting business is heating up – see all our previous blogs on this, notably Booz-AT Kearney, Deloitte UK, Accenture and Capgemini being key newsmakers in recent months....

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PricewaterhouseCoopers UK Has A Term For The Housing Market: “Slowth”

by John Fowler, Big4.com

August 20th, 2010

(blog) Stagnation plus inflation is “Stagflation”

Breakfast plus lunch is “Brunch”

You have very likely heard of these common blended words.

Now PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) UK introduces “Slowth” into housing lexicon, which is not what the Urban Dictionary defines as “Slowness. Generally sloth-like behavior, especially of computers or co-workers” but presumably a blended word of “Slow” plus “Growth”.

In this case, slowth has hit the UK housing market.

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UK Government Reveals Consultant Spend, Big Four Firms Garner Millions

by James Spencer, Big4.com

August 20th, 2010

(blog) The recent release of the Communities and Local Government spending data for the last year 2009 may have been meant as a political gimmick, but it’s proven very useful to see who is really up and down in the reasonably secretive world of public sector procurement.

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PricewaterhouseCoopers Tearing Their Hair Out With Fergie

by Rob Starr, Big4.com

August 20th, 2010

(blog) It’s easy to imagine that the money gurus at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have done more than a few jobs in their time which might have caused them some strife. After all, dealing with some of the biggest names in the financial world and having to juggle complicate money systems from one end of the globe to the other can’t be easy.

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Westpoint Now Embroils KPMG, Deloitte And Australian Securities and Investments Commission

Rob Starr, Big4.com

19 August 2010

(blog) Earlier we had blogged about how KPMG Australia was going to fight its case against Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in the Australian High Court arguing that the case against it was unconstitutional under Australian law (http://bigfouralumni.blogspot.com/2010/05/kpmg-goes-to-high-court-down-under.html)

We said in that blog post…

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KPMG Piggybacks on Dodd-Frank, Hires ex-Fed Official

Chris Nelson, Big4.com

16 August 2010

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the "Dodd-Frank Act") is expected to help lawyers, lobbyists, lawmakers….now Big Four firms.

Yes, Big Four firms are looking at streams of consulting revenue as clients try to understand and make sense of this sprawling act with many procedures which are unclear now and are left to further study .

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PCAOB Releases 2009 Inspection Report on PricewaterhouseCoopers, 9 Issuers Cited

John Fowler, Big4.com

August 16, 2010

PCAOB just released its 2009 annual inspection report on PricewaterhouseCoopers using inspections from October 2008 through October 2009 at the Firm's National Office and at 34 of its approximately 61 U.S. assurance practice offices.

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Accenture Expands Even As the IT Outsourcing Market Outlook Remains Uncertain

Charles Harper, Big4.com

August 9, 2010

(Blog) Even as industry leaders point to an uncertain outlook for IT Outsourcing for the rest of 2010, Accenture moved quite rapidly in July 2010 to grow its market share for the current year and beyond. Within the month of July, the company has announced the acquisition of a French business processing company, the expansion of its operations in the Philippine Islands and the securing of a major outsourcing deal in Bangalore, India.

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Deloitte Powers On In Social Media, But Australian Companies Lag

Nita Teoh, Big4.com

August 5, 2010

Social media is proving to be a powerful force on the business front. And it has been used in multiple ways by innovative companies, as in building a company’s brand, increasing engagement with partners, customers and employees, as also to recruit talent and manage external public relations.

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